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My problem with every visual novel is that they're not 999/VLR
- Thread starter aiswyda
- Start date
OP
OP
I see a lot of people recommending Hotel Dusk—I recall trying it for an hour or so in high school and it not really clicking. Is it one I've got to just power through the first section for?
Oh fuck yeah, thank you! I'm def gonna check this out, it sounds fun as hell. Is there any news on when the last section will be out? I don't *need* to wait but generally I like playing stuff somewhat close together or else I forget haha
Oh fuck yeah, thank you! I'm def gonna check this out, it sounds fun as hell. Is there any news on when the last section will be out? I don't *need* to wait but generally I like playing stuff somewhat close together or else I forget haha
It's really great. It's what DanganRonpa promised to be, but it never got there. Characters are written well, even if there are a couple of tropes.
It really reminded me of 999 with how awesome the twists are unlike Danganronpa and stakes
As for Hotel Dusk. I really like CiNG games, but they are pretty much their own thing, you feel nostalgia by playing them, if that makes sense...
I honestly I would recommend you to play this first:
Nintendo DS' Again by CiNG. It's closer to 999 and so, but you get to experience what made CiNG titles special. If you like it, then go for Hotel Dusk and its sequel, and if you liked those two then go for Trace Memory and Another Code: R.
Anyway, if you play the previously recommended 428: Shibuya or Again, please give it a try to Trauma Team (Wii / Wii U).
If somewhat, it'll be like playing Ghost Trick at times; but there are tons of mystery, especially in the forensics section.
And pls search no spoilers, no images on Google, no OST, no nada, because the ending is awesome! It really pays offs incredibly well!
1-1 was released in August 2017, and Nankidai's been updating around once or twice a year, with the latest being February 2020. Anyway, the fact that YTTD is a completely free game is nuts. There's a manga adaptation, but I hope he has a good way to monetize this.
Now that Kodaka has left an opening Spike-Chunsoft, my pie-in-the-sky dream is that Nankidai gets picked up to write a Danganropna game.
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Play The House in Fata Morgana when you have access to it. One of the best VNs I've read and I love the Zero Escape Trilogy.
I replayed 999 recently and it was not quite as good as the first time I played it, though much of it might've had to do with it being the PS4 version and not the DS original that was a much better experience for several reasons. A second time through, it's a really good dive into an interesting character of Akane with fantastic atmosphere, but it just wasn't as brillaint to me as I once heralded it as.
VLR is still an amazing game with not only its twists and turns, but how it doles them out. That being said, some of the twists are outright silly, and the lack of closure is a mark against it.
13 Sentinels is better than both, easy IMO. The cast incinerates both games put together, the art beats 999 and even better still than VLR, and a more varied soundtrack with more melodic and action-y tracks to go along the atmospheric ones. I think it also goes toe-to-toe with 999 in how it uses the game format to propel the narrative. Is that even possible? It isn't concentrated into a "moment" as much as 999 but it leverages the free choice of stories and battles and info discovery excellently.
VLR is still an amazing game with not only its twists and turns, but how it doles them out. That being said, some of the twists are outright silly, and the lack of closure is a mark against it.
13 Sentinels is better than both, easy IMO. The cast incinerates both games put together, the art beats 999 and even better still than VLR, and a more varied soundtrack with more melodic and action-y tracks to go along the atmospheric ones. I think it also goes toe-to-toe with 999 in how it uses the game format to propel the narrative. Is that even possible? It isn't concentrated into a "moment" as much as 999 but it leverages the free choice of stories and battles and info discovery excellently.
I liked 999 and VLR, but overall I still prefer Steins;Gate by quite a lot, even Steins;Zero. Different strokes and all but I find Steins;Gate story-line and characters quite a bit better. Ace Attorney series is another great one, but didn't quite have same impact for me.
Heck, 428 Shibuya Scramble is amazing and I enjoyed it more as well. It's a bit different animal vs normal VN though. Muv-Luv Alternative is better, but you have to get through vanilla game first unfortunately. Danganronpa was ok, but it just didn't click.
To summarize: Play Steins;Gate. :)
Heck, 428 Shibuya Scramble is amazing and I enjoyed it more as well. It's a bit different animal vs normal VN though. Muv-Luv Alternative is better, but you have to get through vanilla game first unfortunately. Danganronpa was ok, but it just didn't click.
To summarize: Play Steins;Gate. :)
Oh yeah this is a game that is a must play. Definetly play it.
This one hurts. It had such style and hit every "Imma retired cop with that one unsolved case" trope in the book and was great with it.
It was such a process to make the game look the way it did!! But the rotoscopping effect was utilized beautifully and gave the game a such a unique sense of realism.
13 Sentinels is way better than 999 for a very specific reason: the quality of the writing, and its adherence to brevity. 13 Sentinels doesn't sit you down and overexplain why some revelation is so crazy. Instead, it drops constant hints cleverly, and treats you like an observant gamer that will draw conclusions from the bread crumbs found in each separate storyline. When you have a revelation, it's because you put 2 and 2 together. Not because the game said "HEY WAIT, THIS MEANS THIS DUN DUN DUNNNN"
So many VNs drone on and on, and rarely cut the fat. This is a constant issue I have. VNs fall in love with their own prose, and scenes go on forever without actually achieving much. Badly paced, ballooning narrative that feels like it never had an editor. 13 Sentinels is snappy, never outstays its welcome, and I never feel like I'm stuck in narrative hell.
999 and VLR are far better than most in this regard. The absolute worst offenders are Steins;Gate and Fate/Stay Night.
So many VNs drone on and on, and rarely cut the fat. This is a constant issue I have. VNs fall in love with their own prose, and scenes go on forever without actually achieving much. Badly paced, ballooning narrative that feels like it never had an editor. 13 Sentinels is snappy, never outstays its welcome, and I never feel like I'm stuck in narrative hell.
999 and VLR are far better than most in this regard. The absolute worst offenders are Steins;Gate and Fate/Stay Night.
Another vote for Remember11, I thought the pacing was just as tight as VLR. Unlike Ever17 which was mostly a bore fest up till the final 5 hours (which are really good)
Science Adventure series (the ; series) is also great.
Steins;Gate is the one most people know and love because of its amazing anime adaptation. The anime already cover most of the story though so what you get from the VN will only be some short alternate endings and more Okabe's internal monologue. You'll see more of how he sees the world. You can skip this though if you don't want to experience the same story as it's quite long.
I'd recommend playing Linear Bounded Phenogram if you want to know more about other characters because in this one you'll be playing through the perspective of all other characaters and it gave them way more depth than the original series did (especially in the anime where many of them just feel one dimensional). Like, some of them are so weird that you don't really know what they really think unless you are put into their heads like this.
Steins;Gate 0, on the other hand, I'd recommend even if you have seen the anime because they are drastically different. It has completely separated routes that's impossible to cram together into one (which was what the anime tried to do and made the pacing all over the places and messed up some of the plot points or just entirely discard them.)
While Steins;Gate had great adaptation, Chaos;Child and Chaos;Head both had god awful anime adaptation that people often just brushed them off, but the source materials are fucking great. Both of them are about weird gruesome mysterious murders with delusional protagonists.
Chaos;Head is one of the most depressing and uncomfortable VNs I've read mostly because it put you in the perspective of a seriously messed up protagonist and you'll be reading his thoughts throughout the game. He's delusional, paranoia, and socially inept otaku who can't even finish a sentence when talking to other people and seriously need medical help. He's the kind of guy that
so I can't comfortably recommend it to anyone. But it really was an experience that will stick to me for a looong time.
I don't think there's any official english release though and the superior NoAH version (at least from what I've heard because I've only played the original version) is not translated.
Chaos;Child is way easier to find because it's released on Steam. It has more palatable protagonist and overall atmosphere because the protag can at least communicate normally with his friends while Chaos;Head's protag don't really have any friend and can't even talk to people properly and most of the game you will just read his fucked up thoughts.
While it has connections to Chaos;Head, you can jump straight into this without feeling lost. It's vastly superior to Chaos;Head imo (I can't compare it to NoAH though) though I don't know what I can say about it without spoiling something other than you really have to stick to it for a bit before it get really good.
Robotics;Notes... I don't really remember much other than it had an ok anime. It recently released the Elite version on Steam which I bought but haven't start playing yet.
TL;DR
If you already watched Steins;Gate anime and don't want to playthough all of them, just played Steins;Gate 0 and Chaos;Child.
Play Chaos;Head before Chaos;Child if you want the full experience.
Play Steins;Gate Linear Bounded Phenogram if you like the characters.
Steins;Gate is the one most people know and love because of its amazing anime adaptation. The anime already cover most of the story though so what you get from the VN will only be some short alternate endings and more Okabe's internal monologue. You'll see more of how he sees the world. You can skip this though if you don't want to experience the same story as it's quite long.
I'd recommend playing Linear Bounded Phenogram if you want to know more about other characters because in this one you'll be playing through the perspective of all other characaters and it gave them way more depth than the original series did (especially in the anime where many of them just feel one dimensional). Like, some of them are so weird that you don't really know what they really think unless you are put into their heads like this.
Steins;Gate 0, on the other hand, I'd recommend even if you have seen the anime because they are drastically different. It has completely separated routes that's impossible to cram together into one (which was what the anime tried to do and made the pacing all over the places and messed up some of the plot points or just entirely discard them.)
While Steins;Gate had great adaptation, Chaos;Child and Chaos;Head both had god awful anime adaptation that people often just brushed them off, but the source materials are fucking great. Both of them are about weird gruesome mysterious murders with delusional protagonists.
Chaos;Head is one of the most depressing and uncomfortable VNs I've read mostly because it put you in the perspective of a seriously messed up protagonist and you'll be reading his thoughts throughout the game. He's delusional, paranoia, and socially inept otaku who can't even finish a sentence when talking to other people and seriously need medical help. He's the kind of guy that
imagine himself raping his classmate
I don't think there's any official english release though and the superior NoAH version (at least from what I've heard because I've only played the original version) is not translated.
Chaos;Child is way easier to find because it's released on Steam. It has more palatable protagonist and overall atmosphere because the protag can at least communicate normally with his friends while Chaos;Head's protag don't really have any friend and can't even talk to people properly and most of the game you will just read his fucked up thoughts.
While it has connections to Chaos;Head, you can jump straight into this without feeling lost. It's vastly superior to Chaos;Head imo (I can't compare it to NoAH though) though I don't know what I can say about it without spoiling something other than you really have to stick to it for a bit before it get really good.
Robotics;Notes... I don't really remember much other than it had an ok anime. It recently released the Elite version on Steam which I bought but haven't start playing yet.
TL;DR
If you already watched Steins;Gate anime and don't want to playthough all of them, just played Steins;Gate 0 and Chaos;Child.
Play Chaos;Head before Chaos;Child if you want the full experience.
Play Steins;Gate Linear Bounded Phenogram if you like the characters.
I played Umineko waaaaaay back in the day, before there were any PS3 sprites and honestly while I ultimately enjoyed it it's something that's hard to recommend. There's this huge barrier of "just go with it" where the general premise of the game isn't immediately easy to understand. The first episode is simple enough but from the second episode on I've seen tons of people fall off because they're confused as to what exactly is going on.
Why is there suddenly a separate version of Battler in an undescribed location looking at a version of Episode 1 that's radically different from the first episode?
Why are there high action fight scenes?
Why does Battler not believe in the magic witch when she is literally conjuring up all sorts of magic right in front of him?
A mystery bringing up questions is absolutely no problem. The issue is that some of these questions will be answered by just investing a lot of time into the novel and others will not and there's no real way for a new player to know what they should be racking their brain about and what they should just let explain itself. It can lead to a frustrating experience where things are just happening. I had the benefit of liking Higurashi back then so I was ready for Umineko and I was reading it on an episode by episode basis but for someone fresh I think it's a tall task to get into it.
Why is there suddenly a separate version of Battler in an undescribed location looking at a version of Episode 1 that's radically different from the first episode?
Why are there high action fight scenes?
Why does Battler not believe in the magic witch when she is literally conjuring up all sorts of magic right in front of him?
A mystery bringing up questions is absolutely no problem. The issue is that some of these questions will be answered by just investing a lot of time into the novel and others will not and there's no real way for a new player to know what they should be racking their brain about and what they should just let explain itself. It can lead to a frustrating experience where things are just happening. I had the benefit of liking Higurashi back then so I was ready for Umineko and I was reading it on an episode by episode basis but for someone fresh I think it's a tall task to get into it.
OP
OP
Funnily enough, I feel the exact opposite of 13 sentinels. Things are hinted TOO much. I'm apparently like 60% through the plot and because of how many hints are set up, I'd say I've been genuinely surprised maybe twice? So much feels like "yeah we gave you twelve hints now we're gonna fill in the details bc even tho you basically know what's going on, you don't have all these little details connecting everything."
I prefer bigger surprises where I can speculate based on hints and then suddenly everything clicks.
for example, I finished Amiguchi's route—hes one of my favorite characters, but I felt like the end of his route was pretty underwhelming because I felt it was obvious around like 40% done with it that he was Tetsuya Ida's clone. So a large part of that scene was me being like yeah dude...that was obvious....same with the Miyuki reveal. I had figured out she was Tomi a while ago due to the copious amounts of hints. So when that reveal occurred, there was no payoff other then "finally!"
I also recently had it revealed to me how the sectors work/that it's not really time travel..which I also had figured out a while before due to copious hints.
I also recently had it revealed to me how the sectors work/that it's not really time travel..which I also had figured out a while before due to copious hints.
Maybe it's me just not enjoying the format. But I find the small hints ends up making what should be cool big reveals way less impactful. Not because discovering something on your own isn't fun—but because it feels like they give you WAY too many hints. Gimme like...half as many and I'll feel way more satisfying solving things by myself.
To each their own, 13 Sentinels was a slog for me and the twists are literally straight out of Professor Layton. So maybe it's a bit snappier but the story is so much worse than 999.
This one hurts. It had such style and hit every "Imma retired cop with that one unsolved case" trope in the book and was great with it.
It was such a process to make the game look the way it did!! But the rotoscopping effect was utilized beautifully and gave the game a such a unique sense of realism.
Man, I heard ex-Cing people got together to make another game Chase: Cold Case but looking into it, apparently it's a short episodic proof of concept that won't continue (in addition to being more basic cop show). I get that the type of adventure stories weren't lucrative enough to keep Cing afloat but it's still a shame.
Man I love Hotel Dusk but honestly, I mostly resent the game-y parts of these kind of adventure games. The escape the room segments of 999, the battles in 13 Sentinels, etc. Hotel Dusk is a major victim to this.
There's cute storytelling and DS focused touch puzzles so it's not all bad but most of the time it's slow tank controls and simple adventure clicking. The mystery and characters and how it comes together is riveting and kept me invested, the navigation segments feel perfunctory.
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So I noticed on the Switch sale that some VNs are on-sale.
Spirit Hunter Death Mark is $19.99
Yu-No is $24.99
Steins;Gate 0 is $14.99
I generally only play VNs on portables since they're like books. Was playing most of them on Vita for a while but now Vita is dead and Switch is next option but VNs have been expensive there and a lot of them missing. I tried using Steam Link to play VNs on a tablet from my PC and they kind of work but they definitely don't work as well as playing on a native handheld.
Are the above 3 worth it at those prices? Only really interested in really good VN stuff like 999/Fata Morgana/Steins;Gate/Higurashi, not average boring stuff.
Spirit Hunter Death Mark is $19.99
Yu-No is $24.99
Steins;Gate 0 is $14.99
I generally only play VNs on portables since they're like books. Was playing most of them on Vita for a while but now Vita is dead and Switch is next option but VNs have been expensive there and a lot of them missing. I tried using Steam Link to play VNs on a tablet from my PC and they kind of work but they definitely don't work as well as playing on a native handheld.
Are the above 3 worth it at those prices? Only really interested in really good VN stuff like 999/Fata Morgana/Steins;Gate/Higurashi, not average boring stuff.
999 was my first journey into these types of games outside of the first Phoenix Wright. Really stuck with me. I liked VLR (especially how the QoL enhancements made subsequent playthroughs painless), but always preferred 999.
I have Fata Morgana, 428, and Steins;Gate to get to next.
I have Fata Morgana, 428, and Steins;Gate to get to next.
Of those I've played Steins;Gate 0. People are varied on opinions on it, but I found it even better than the first one. I would absolutely play it if you consider yourself a fan of the original